When talking about a career where he’s already rung up 50 or more points 10 times before his 30th birthday, it’s sort of an exercise in wretched excess to even try to rank LeBron James’ best games. Like picking out your favorite bauble among the crown jewels. Or the best Ferrari in the showroom.

It’s not always the final total that makes the difference, but the timing, the situation, the opponent and this one had it all.

Against the perennial Eastern Conference power and veteran lineup of the Pistons, with the series tied at 2-2, James was unstoppable in the fourth quarter and overtime at The Palace.

He scored over Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince. He drove to the basket on Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace. He made rainbow 3-pointers, step-back jumpers while falling out of bounds and even made nifty move behind his back before stabbing in another dagger.

A 22-year-old James scored Cleveland’s last 25 points and 29 of the final 30 in performance that Steve Kerr on TNT called “positively Jordanesque.”

It was the game that was supposed to define James as one of the game’s greatest individual talents and yet classic underachievers. At least that’s what the critics were saying as the Heat took the floor amid the hostile environment of the TD Garden in Boston. The Heat had blown a 2-0 lead in the series by losing three in a row to the Celtics and this was the game when James’ reputation would be buried.

Instead it was LeBron who did the burying, hitting 19 of 25 shots and shoveling 45 points onto the heads of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and all of the storied Celtics tradition.

“He played amazing,” said Dwyane Wade. “He was locked in from the beginning of the game like I’ve never seen him before.”

After two days of questions about the Heat’s future and his own history, James answered by scoring 30 points before halftime.

“I hope now you guys can stop talking about LeBron and how he doesn’t play in big games,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “He was pretty good tonight. So we can put that to bed and go play Game 7.”

There have literally been dozens of games where he’s scored more points. But his was vintage James dropping the hammer on the greatest season in Heat franchise history and clinching back-to-back NBA championships by nailing a jumper inside the final minute that put down the Spurs for good.

He had started the series slow, struggling on offense. But James finished with at least 25 points in the last four games of the series and was clinically efficient all over the court during the clincher. He matched his playoff high by making five 3-pointers and also did a lockdown job defensively on point guard Tony Parker, the ignition spark to everything the Spurs tried to do on offense.

So much of everyone’s memory of the series lingers on the dramatics at the end of the sixth game. But that would have been just a footnote to history if the Heat didn’t close the deal. Remember, this was Game 7 of The Finals, and James made sure it happened.

It won’t go down with historic import of his top performances in the playoffs, but it was a magical night when James came down like a blizzard on the heads of the helpless Bobcats.

We’ll remember it as the night when LeBron finally joined the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony in the “60 club” and probably just as much for his blitz of 8-for-10 shooting from behind the 3-point line.

As was pointed out by Hang Time colleague Sekou Smith, what sets LeBron’s 60 apart from Kobe and Carmelo is that he was doing a helluva lot more than just shooting the ball. Just another “typical” all-around game with seven rebounds and five assists.

How much of everyone’s perception of James and how much of the past two seasons of NBA history would have been changed if James didn’t step up big and save the Heat from going over the edge?

The Pacers had already taken home court advantage away from Miami and with a 2-1 lead in the series were on their home turf trying to built an insurmountable advantage. The Heat were missing center Chris Bosh, who was suffering from an abdominal injury and had Wade trying to recover from one of the worst playoff games of his career.

Indiana built a 10-point lead early in the third quarter and then LeBron teamed with Wade and simply took over.

James made 14 of 27 shots, got to the foul line 16 times, owned the backboards with a career playoff-high 18 boards and swatted back a pair of Pacers shots for good measure.

“I felt like I had to do whatever it took to win,” James said.

“LeBron had that look,” said teammate Shane Battier. “And when he has that look…you want to run through a wall.”

Before they put down the rival Celtics and before they beat OKC to win their first title, the Heat had to survive their first real test in Game 4 at Indiana. This underrated and under appreciated classic from James made sure they did.

9 Comments

@cp10 – I hope you realize that Chamberlain played in a completely different league. One where teams averaged 18ppg more than teams do today. Secondly, the average height of an NBA player was over two inches less than it is today. So while Chamberlain is able to tower over other players, and use his size (since most pros didn’t work out to the same degree as current ones do), LeBron doesn’t have nearly the same advantage that your Big Dipper does.

Also, why are you trying to take away from one man’s accomplishments by bringing up another? Both were good achievements in their own right.

Don’t you think it would be harder for Lebron to score 61 on all two-pointers? Because that is what Jordan and Wilt did.
You are forgetting that those guys played in the era of two-pointers… in today’s game, two pointers and mid-range are viewed as low efficiency shots – but those were the only shots taken in previous eras….. This highly suboptimal shot allocation, the lack of spacing, and the higher level of physicality made Jordan and Wilt’s eras tougher.

In previous eras that didn’t use the three-pointer, all the shots were taken in and around the paint area… so the painted area is where all the defenders would be…. Take even a cursory glance at any old game and you’ll see all 10 on-court players congesting and camping in the paint – they looked like a throng of 20-somethings outside of a nightclub in South Beach… this congestion made the paint defense of previous eras superior to what we see today… what we see today is superior PERIMETER defense because that is where the defenders have migrated to in order to defend the three-pointers… but again, a cursory glance at today’s game will show a wide open painted area, as all the defenders have been drawn out of there by the 3-point shooters.